


This Feeling Calls For Everything That I Am Not

by deandratb



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Prompt fic; set duringFamily Portrait.Alice attempts to thank Matthew for defending her.He hadn’t paused before laying into Wallace. He hadn’t even considered the man’s words for a moment. He’d jumped to her defense, just like that.





	This Feeling Calls For Everything That I Am Not

**Author's Note:**

> For [thetucc](http://thetucc.tumblr.com/). Prompt: **Alice thanking Matthew for standing up for her to Wallace**

“You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“I know.” 

Lawson leaned against the wall outside the station, needing the air after dealing with probably the most incompetent ‘doctor’ he’d ever had to work with. Of all the people who could have come to interrupt him, Alice was the least annoying; for that he was grateful.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,” she added, staring down the bustling street. “But I can speak for myself.”

“I know that, too.”

“It’s nothing I don’t deal with all the time.”

Matthew sighed, turning to face her. “You think I don’t know that, Doctor? After Gareth Orton, when--”

Seeing her stricken expression, he stopped himself. “After I came back, I heard. I’m sorry...Alice...but everyone heard. You know how people talk.”

She laughed, without humor. “Oh, yes.”

“Right. Well, I’m aware of what it’s like for you, as much as I can be, and you don’t deserve the way they treat you.”

Alice blinked at him, saying nothing for so long that Lawson wondered if he’d offended her further.

“You know,” she ventured quietly, “no one has ever said that to me before.”

He raised an eyebrow, a silent request for elaboration.

“I know I’m tough. I’ve had to be. But with all that’s happened, even my friends--nobody ever thought to tell me that it’s not my fault.”

Nodding, Matthew tucked his free hand in his pocket. Somehow, with Alice, it felt necessary to quash the urge to reach out. He couldn’t tell if that was because his instincts told him she wouldn’t be comfortable with it...or if it was simply that he didn’t know where the desire came from. He was suspicious of it.

“Well, it isn’t. And just because you don’t need protecting...doesn’t mean you don’t merit it anyhow.”

Whenever Alice smiled, the sharp angles of her face softened in the strangest way. _He tried not to think about it too much._

“Thank you, Matthew.”

“Sure.”

“Now, are you heading back inside?” She gestured toward the door, as though she might walk with him.

“In a minute.”

“Ah.” She smoothed her hands over the front of her labcoat. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Though Matthew had come outside specifically to be alone, he couldn’t remember why. “You could stay,” he offered.

Her brief hesitation was charming. “All right.”

Alice joined him against the wall, watching the people walk by.

“You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” Lawson told her, voice lowered against the passing crowds.

He said it conversationally, simply, as though it were a truth universally acknowledged--one that didn’t require a reply. Since it left her speechless, that was a mercy.

She ran her hands over her coat again, a nervous gesture she couldn’t seem to quash. 

Especially around him.

“So,” she said finally. “Even with Dr. Wallace in the way, by tomorrow at the latest I should be able to get you the--”

“We don’t need to talk about work,” Matthew said, cutting off her attempt to bring the conversation back to territory she understood. “Let’s just...take the minute.” 

“Okay.” Sighing inwardly, Alice went back to watching the people, and trying to figure him out. He didn’t want to talk about work, yet complimenting her from out of nowhere was fine? Confounding man.

_He hadn’t paused before laying into Wallace. He hadn’t even considered the man’s words for a moment. He’d jumped to her defense, just like that._

“I like your shirt.”

Lawson gaped at her before he burst out laughing. It was such an awkward, yet oddly sincere compliment. It was so...Alice.

“Thanks.” He grinned sideways at her. “I like yours too.”

She flushed, and went back to watching passersby. “Do you like people-watching?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you come out here often like this, to enjoy the view? All the people, bustling about, going on with their lives. I imagine it could be entertaining. If you like that sort of thing.”

“God, no.” He leaned away from the wall and back onto his cane. “I just need to breathe sometimes, get away from the people in there.”

“Because it’s so peaceful out here,” Alice quipped.

“It’s a different kind of noise,” Matthew replied, and she nodded in understanding.

“True.”

They stood in silence for a few more moments, Matthew watching the town go by and Alice painfully aware of his nearness.

_“There is one thing that she is not, and that is careless,” he’d said._

_Which begged the question...to Matthew, what exactly was she?_

To her, he was a puzzle.

She had always enjoyed puzzles.

“Would you like to have dinner?”

Alice might have expected him to decline, gently. To tell her how much he valued her friendship, but that she just wasn’t the sort of woman he had **that** kind of an interest in. She certainly expected him to at least think it over. 

Matthew barely blinked. “Yes,” he answered immediately. 

It had been such an impulse, for a rarely impulsive person, that Alice wasn’t sure what to do next. She wasn’t prepared for his ready agreement.

“Well. Good then.” 

“Yes,” Matthew repeated, shooting her another grin. “We should probably head in now. Get back to work.”

Right. Work. She shook her head to clear it, feeling foolish. “Of course.”

“Looking forward to dinner,” he told her as he turned to go. “Mind if I pick the restaurant?”

“No. No, not at all.”

“Great. See you later, then.”

He left Alice standing on the sidewalk, dazed in his absence, where a man with a parcel bumped into her unmoving form. 

How could someone who walked so slowly be such a whirlwind? 

Vaguely dizzy, she straightened her shoulders and went back to the morgue. It was almost certainly a terrible idea, dating a coworker. She would likely regret it.

She wasn’t even sure what she’d been thinking, inviting him out that way.

_“I’ve known Doctor Harvey for some time...”_

Honestly, she hadn’t been thinking. 

She had been feeling too much for that.

Alice hummed tunelessly through her next autopsy-- _Mrs. Badgley, natural causes, no need to see...anyone from the station_ \--and tried to decide what to wear.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Stray Italian Greyhound" by Vienna Teng (aka my official Malice anthem).


End file.
